Count The Days Until I'm Free
by Ella Press
Summary: A series of simulations Samaritan puts Sameen through, until He unwillingly guides her home.
First of all, a word. This piece is meant as the continuation of "Count The Moments Until I Find You", so go read that first.

I want you to know that I began writing this before watching 6,741. I thought that meant the hours of Sameen's captivity, and while not entirely correct, I wasn't that far off. Most of this fic was written before I watched the episode, and afterwards, I modified a few things based on the new info I had available.

So, obviously, my simulations will not be the same ones you may imagine yourselves. You may not like my characterisation of Sameen and categorise it as too OOC for someone with her PD, but believe me, this took me days of writing and research, and I am super happy with how it turned out. If you have doubts about why I portray certain things a certain way, ask me and I'll give you a detailed explanation.

Any mistakes you find, let me know, as English isn't my first language.

[For filius-astrae and redjohna on Tumblr]

 **xxxxx**

 **[1]**

 _Listen_.

The silence bouncing off the walls. The beeping of the machines attached to her skin, her temples, monitoring the miracle that is her.

This is the first time they've left her alone in what feels like forever. And even though she missed the quiet, she's not sure she likes the pounding of her crazy heartbeat in her ears.

Her restrains usually cut off the circulation in her wrists, but a hard tug on her left one lets her know that whoever tied it must be the most incompetent minion to work in this place. She frees her left hand in a minute, the other in a second.

Wires and sensors are ripped from sweaty skin, tangling as they're thrown to the ground.

She flinches as her naked feet hit the cold tiles, shooting a shiver up her spine. But that's good, her body still remembers how it's supposed to act. She can hardly say the same for herself.

The halls are eerily empty as she slithers down them, trying to find a way out of this maze. She was barely awake when they rolled her in here in an icy metal bed, but conscious enough to have her training kick in, to remember certain details, her own golden thread back to freedom.

Voices around a corner feel like cold fingers against her hot skin, making her heart all but stop inside her chest.

She's come this far, there's absolutely no way she's gonna let them capture her again.

Soon, she's ducking behind a column, going around it to avoid being seen, and she could almost laugh at herself for thinking that no one's watching, because of course there is.

The two sets of voices grow louder as they get closer, and she can sense it, the adrenaline rush firing up her veins, her survival instinct screaming in her head.

So loud, the screaming, the ringing in her ears, they're coming,

 _-use one as a_ _shield_.

 _Get the gun from his limp body._

 _Shoot the faceless one that remains._

 _And take his key card from him._

On her way to the lift, no one else stops her and she knows why without a shadow of a doubt. But she'll be damned if she gives that fucking robot what it wants from her.

Sameen tries her best to keep her hands from shaking, but it's next to impossible, she realises, as she swipes the card over the reader and breathes fresh air again after all this time.

It's colder than she thought it would be, the snow hasn't completely disappeared. Grey puddles, like vomit, tease her bones from the ground she runs on. She checks the magazine of the gun and sees it's almost full. Loads a bullet into its chamber and walks towards the middle of a road. Sees a jogger coming up on her right and lifts the weapon to his temple. Really, she needs his shoes and jacket more than he does. Oh, and the beanie, too. Thank you.

A quick check on the jacket and she finds a wallet full of money. She looks around but can't for the life of her remember where she is. Is she even in the city anymore? The shoes she stole are a tad too big, but it beats walking around in bare feet. She doesn't walk much longer, though. A yellow cab is turning the corner of the street she's on, and it stops when she hails it. The inside of the car smells of its heating system, a smell she quickly finds herself learning to love as it brushes away the scent of drugs and stale air from before.

She burrowes her body more snugly into the jacket and gives the address of a random radio station to the cabbie. The black beanie keeps her head warm, her hair concealed, but does little to soothe the pounding.

 _Doesn't matter. No, not right now. Focus on other things, like the words you memorised ages ago, the code she came up with for when you needed to find each other after the storm._

 _Remember, the lines around her eyes as she smiles in that way reserved only for you, the tingles her touch leaves on your skin when she brushes her fingers against your cheek._

"Miss? We're here," the cabbie says, pulling her out of her thoughts. Looking at her in a strange way as her body stops her involuntary rocking back and forth.

She doesn't know how many bills she throws at him, but it must have been okay, because he's soon gone.

She's had some time to get used to the sunlight again. But the itch, it's crawling inside her and she blinks to keep it at bay.

Inside the radio station, she pays with the jogger's credit card to put out the announcement Root wrote months ago.

 _Come and find me_ , it says. _I'll be waiting_.

Another cab, another hour of driving around to make sure she's not being followed. This cabbie makes no comment as he leaves her under a bridge and for some reason that annoys her. But all she can do now is wait.

And she doesn't have to wait long.

She swears she feels her even before she sees the big black bike coming down the road. Her hands in her pockets, she waits for the other woman to pull over beside her, to take her helmet off. To reveal herself to her and promise her she's not making this up.

Brown curls bounce as the helmet's pushed aside. The pouring of her tears an occurrence that's been happening in that thin face ever since picking up the coded message online. Sameen sees her own grief reflected back at her, sees the rock in that long, beautiful neck of hers as Root swallows.

She can't break down here, _now_ , but- " _Shaw_."

It's back, she knew it. The pounding.

It's been a while since she's heard her call her that, but she'll take what she can get.

 _Close your eyes. Breathe, Sameen_.

"Did you bring an extra helmet for me?" she asks, eyes closed. The heaviness in her skull is taking away her ability to pay attention to detail. So it's no surprise that Root manages to sneak up on her, having left the bike behind.

Cold, gloved fingers rest on her hollowed cheek and it hurts, how much she missed this, how much the freezing cold is cutting her flesh. Leaving her open for the other woman to poke and prod inside her. A bitter aftertaste fills her mouth and a frown crowns her features, but she still leans into the hand holding her, unable to put two and two together.

"We have to go," she says. Opens her eyes. And finds two big brown pools staring back at her. Full to the brim.

The hand on her cheek falls, a helmet is pressed into her hands.

They make their way back into the city following the roads on the shadow map.

Sam holds on, grabbing onto the body in front of her, feeling a hand rest against hers, squeezing life back into her.

They go back to the library.

"They don't come here anymore," Root explains, not looking at her for a second. Her cheeks burn red with what Sameen recognises as shame. She wishes to take it away. But she stays still. "Samaritan's agents used to come all the time, to see if we'd come back. But, they gave up on this place after a while," she finishes.

Root sits on the edge of the round table, computer screens littering the floor. She chances a glance at Sam, who hasn't stopped looking at her since entering the building.

"Where are the others?" she asks in what tries to be her normal voice. Are they okay, she means to say but something inside her stops her.

"Harold's trying to get the Machine to work back on full power, and John running interference on Samaritan. We'll go see them soon. I just wanted to make sure you were okay first."

Okay?

 _You're okay_.

"I'm okay."

The gloves are off. Sam notices the black nails shining against the drab backdrop of the library. Feels them as they come to rake her skin. As she steals the breath away from the other woman in a desperate kiss.

But the ringing in her ears, is it in her head or is it coming off of Root's jacket?

Root has to extricate herself from Sameen's grasp, search for the source of the sound. "It's Harold," she says, and Sameen wonders why she changed her perfume when she loved it so much. Maybe because Sam wasn't there to compliment her for it, or maybe because it reminded Root that she only wore it for her, and what was the point in wearing it when she wasn't around?

"He says Samaritan's coming, we need to leave."

It's strange, but, as soon as those words leave Root's mouth, an old instinct starts up in Sameen. Cold dread swims in her veins, and she would kick herself for not having noticed it before, but she can't take it out _now_. She needs to put as much space between them and Samaritan as possible.

And only then find a way to leave Root so she can take the tracker out of her wrist, but not before having led them away first.

Her hand snakes around pale skin and she pushes the other woman to follow her, placing her body right in front of her, a shield of flesh and blood. Ripe for the taking.

They reach the bike, waiting on the sidewalk, but not fast enough. A thunder booms in front of her, the metallic lightning nearly reaching its target.

No time for helmets, Root's already wielding her two weapons and she screams at Sameen, veins bulging under her skin.

"DRIVE!"

So she does, swerving to avoid being struck by lightning.

"We have to find Harold and John!" Root screams in ear, pressing both guns to her stomach.

"We'll lead Samaritan right to them, we can't!"

More gunfire clouding her senses. What seems to be an infinite number of shots joins the hammer pounding on her skull. The car that follows them is right beside them, unrelenting. A bullet grazes Sam's skin and her arm loses mobility. The bike's front tire bursts when metal reaches it.

And they're not wearing their helmets.

When she comes to, a tall man has his gun pressed to her heaving chest, an ache all over her. He shakes her shoulders, spits in her ear, "It's cute, that you thought you'd get far."

They took Root's guns away. Where?

 _Look_.

There, by her feet.

 _Can you see them,_ her eyes say.

A nod. _Yes_.

The other goon's gun is to Root's stomach and a hundred ways to keep her from getting hurt flash by Sameen's mind, but she finds none quite to her liking.

The inevitability of this moment starts to crush down on her. But, in her heart, Sam knows this is what it was supposed to come down to. A continuation of the events put in motion a long time ago.

She only wished she'd called her one of her silly pet names, just to remember the sound of it, later.

"Time for you to take us to your leader, " the one holding her says.

 _Get ready_.

 _Always_ _am_.

"Yeah, I don't think so."

Deft hands twist wrists and get ahold of the gun, turning it against its previous owner, releasing the round that had been meant for her.

On her side of things, Root manages to disarm her attacker in a quick motion that's lost on Sam as she carries out her own struggle. He falls to the ground, next to Root's fallen weapons, and just as he's about to shoot her with one of them, Sameen puts two in his brain.

Sam knows she has to leave, but what if this is the last chance she has to see her again, with so much still left unsaid? Words have never come easy to her.

"Shaw…" Root begins, moving closer.

But, since when does she call her _Shaw_ to her face so much? Where are the loving _sweeties_ and _honeys_ she'd grown used to hearing?

A movement behind Root pulls her out of her reverie, a glint of metal against the darkness of the shadows.

Her next moves are so clear in her mind that even when sacrificing her knight, she rests peacefully knowing her queen will be safe.

Two distinct shots and a wretched scream are last thing she hears.

And she can't shake the feeling that maybe she's heard it all before, in a different lifetime.

 **[End of simulation #1]**

||Data compiled from the simulation:

Potential Asset successfully followed directive #1: To terminate assets to escape compound.

Potential Asset shows no remorse in stealing from passersby to obtain items necessary for the completion of the mission.

Potential Asset's first thought is to find Primary Threat Samantha Groves.

Potential Asset appears unwilling to risk any of the members of her team.

Potential Asset successfully followed directive #2: Communicate with Primary Threat via secret code. Continue search for more information on this matter.

Potential Asset is willing to put her life before Primary Threat's.||

/:Move on to next simulation:/

 **[120]**

There's blood, a trickle running down her bicep, forearm, hand, leaving a maroon trail on the sidewalk. Her breath comes in pants and she blames her captors for disrupting her training routine, and herself, for letting them. She wishes she could do something to stop the bleeding, she's practically shining a beacon for them to come for her, but she has nothing at hand, no cloth or duct tape to smother that light.

She needs to keep going, push herself beyond breaking point, disregard the shakiness of her legs and _move_.

She's run for how long? Two, three hours? The fog still blurs her thoughts, pounds on her skull, matching the rhythm of her feet on the ground.

Only one thought, one image, stands still in the eye of the hurricane. Her place of redemption. It is only right to keep running towards it.

She should have paid more attention to her surroundings, made mental notes of the place where they were holding her so she could go back later and burn the place to the ground with _her_ help. She thinks she would have liked that, can almost see the smirk on her face as they both watch the flames.

But… she's not here.

She still has to find her, that's what she's doing, why she's running,

 _Sameen, focus_.

The crisp, cold air hits her sweaty skin as she blends in with the early morning joggers of the city. She could easily pass for one, in her black hoodie, military fatigues and trainers. The only difference between her and them is that getting to her finish line represents actual salvation.

She runs through parks, streets, every place familiar and yet, not quite. No one looks at her as she runs with the devil on her heels. If they notice the blood seeping through her shirt, staining her hoodie and drawing lines on the ground, they don't say a word.

She's a ghost in the middle of a crowd, with no one around for her to haunt.

Before she realises where her feet are taking her, she's running up the stairs of an old, abandoned building in a nondescript side of town.

The echoes her feet and her heart make collide in her brain, her chest, and she shakes her head to clear the noise and the confusion, but it's _not_ helping.

 _Can you make it stop?_

Her heart is a runner inside her chest, frantically trying to win the marathon. The stairs come to an end and the gate waits for her, open. But, somehow, she knew it would be.

Her eyelids close and she feels them, an out of body sensation: rolling, spinning, her eyes, behind her skin, fighting to _see_ better.

Put the focus back on the looking glass, clear the picture.

Fists on either side of her tense body, she gets ready for whatever may come, but never for this.

For _that_ voice and the smile ringing in her ears.

"You came," she hears her say, and it's a struggle between relief and heartache because it's wrong

wrong

 _so very very wrong._

Sameen knows better than to open her eyes but she can't help herself. It is beyond her control, like everything that's happening around her, everything that has happened since that fateful day when she last saw her.

When her eyes open of their own accord, she finds her there, looking exactly the same as she remembers her.

 _Exactly the same_.

Her long, willowy frame leans forwards from where she sat on the table cleared of the keyboard and screens. She smiles at Sameen, but it doesn't reach her troubled eyes, and the punch to her gut is a thousand times stronger than she'd dreamed of.

The woman says, "I-I…" The saddest sigh bursts through the lips she longs to be reacquainted with. But Sameen can't move, her mind and body never settling on a directive. "I got your message but I didn't…"

One of them has to close the distance. So Root approaches slowly, testing the ground. Her eyes never leave Sameen's.

And Sam's resolve starts to crumble. Just the sight of the other woman is enough to bring her to her knees and it is entirely her fault for allowing herself to grow too attached to her.

For letting her become her anchor.

"I didn't think it could actually be you."

"Who else would it be?" Sam frowns, takes a step back and away. Her eyes widen to exorbitant proportions, the two round headlights that catch the deer in front of her. "Who are _you_?" she demands.

The avatar of the woman she is still looking for raises her eyebrows to the sky and laughs, but the frequency's off, an unwelcome invasion of sound.

"What do you mean?" she says, eyes wet, advancing on her, trapping her against the wall. "It's me."

Except it's not, there's no spark in her eyes, no heat as she holds a cold hand to Sam's face.

Sameen flinches, wishes to separate herself from her touch. But doesn't. Instead, she bites the inside of her cheek hard enough to draw blood. "What did they do to you?" she whispers, her gaze searching for answers in the face that occupies her field of vision.

It's the only thing she can think of, that they got to this woman the same way they got to Sameen, that day at the stock exchange.

It had been all for nothing, then.

A quirk of the lips. Tears falling from her eyes. And a whisper that sounds like a scream. "The Machine really thought that you were smarter than this."

 _Seriously_ , thinks Sameen, the wall she'd so carefully constructed around her falling apart at the seams. _Maybe I should_ _have been_.

Root's cold body presses itself against Sam's, blocking her means of escape. Disarming her against the bricks, becoming the proverbial sword.

Two inches apart and Sameen can't even feel her breath tingle her face like it used to, during stolen moments.

Maybe they've both become ghosts, running from oblivion.

"They may have pulled you over to their side, but this," says the mirage of the woman she once knew, caressing Sam's face with icy fingers, "what we had, I knew they wouldn't be able to erase it, not completely, anyway."

And then she feels it, its tip sinking into her sternum like an old friend turned into a traitor. The forced, sad smile fades from Root's lips as Sameen looks down to the blade Root holds between her fingers. Words don't hold meaning to Sameen anymore, only the sound of her voice is what is keeping her sane. If _she's_ saying it then it must be true, they did something to change her, to make her a threat.

And is the last thing in the world she wants to be.

So she closes her eyes, leans her tired head on the wall. "I'm ready," she says. She means it with every bone in her body, melding into the bricks at her back and trying to disappear. Her hands meet Root's, applying more force.

She wants this to be over, needs it to stop. She's tired of the dreams.

"If this is what it takes to keep you safe, then do it."

A new wound spills more blood, adding to the pool of red at her feet.

"I truly am sorry, Shaw."

(They don't let her feel the blade going in, but she thinks they should have. Maybe then this whole ordeal would be over.)

 **[End of simulation #120]**

||Data compiled from the simulation:

Potential Asset's resistance to pain has increased by 15%.

Potential Asset's grasp on reality has decreased by 8%.

Potential Asset's first thought continues to be finding Primary Threat Samantha Groves.

Potential Asset appears to be willing to die by Primary Threat's hand.

Potential Asset flinched when subjected to Primary Threat's touch. Body response: Reaction to cold. Modifications: Increase heat transfer into simulation by 30%.

Keep studying Potential Asset and Primary Threat's previous interactions to determine the next best scenario for the simulation.||

/:Move on to next simulation:/

 **[744]**

"You have to. _Please_."

She can barely speak, her voice a gurgle bubbling up her throat.

In order to hear her better, she lowers her ear to the other woman's lips. And even though these may be her last words -this, their last moment-, Sameen only half listens to her. Her thoughts are better used coming up with new ways to escape, new means of blasting the doors open.

Anything to get the image of the other woman strapped to the metal bed out of her brain. Impulsively and in true Root fashion, the taller woman barged into this place looking for her without a concise plan in mind. And look where that got her.

 _She never does learn, does she?_

Sam's hand feels strangely empty. She looks down for a fraction of a second and confirms that it is. Did she lose her weapon while she made her way to this nightmarish room? Perhaps when she fought her way through the hallway outside this gruesome OR. Sounds like the only possible explanation, because up until three minutes ago the gun of the guard she killed outside of her own cell had laid heavy in her hand.

A discarded body lays by the only door out of this place, its white lab coat shining, unblemished. Sameen chastises herself for not having grabbed its key card before killing it. The creature had been smart enough to throw it out of the room just as the door was closing, just as its neck was snapped. No one but herself would blame Sameen for not having been faster in obtaining that card.

Not when what she'd found was something right out of her worst fears.

She'll just have to be more careful next time.

There are no windows, something obvious considering they're in a sublevel. The equipment around them, maybe? Could it be rigged to set up a small explosion? She only needs to short circuit the board that she would have been able to open, had she been quick enough to steal the key card.

"Shaw?" A breath in her ear, cold wisps of air that snake into her, uninvited.

She sees her without wanting to, her peripheral vision picking up every gory detail and saving everything to feed the nightmares she'll have in the days to come.

If she's even allowed time to have them, that is.

Fear, she's learned ever since that day when all seemed lost, when the only thing she knew to do to calm her erratic heart was to face the demon in _her_ stead; fear it turns out, is an emotion that she has mastered quite well.

It is the clingy friend that comes when she's feeling tired and wants to be left alone. Someone she can't throw out because it has become such an integral part of her, she doesn't know how to live without it anymore.

It lives in the shadows that outline _her_ ribs when her muscles are bruised and gone. It is who gives one of them a quick rhythm for her heart, her breathing, to follow, but refuses to share that same kindness with another.

It is a mirror Sam can't help but look into as she brings her gaze back down to hers.

"Please," it says, the fear.

And she feels it come back around tenfold, eliciting the most bizarre of reactions from her.

" _Root,"_ she all but barks at the fragile woman. "I'm _thinking_."

Four cameras, one on each corner of the ceiling. Four eyes burning holes on her head and adding to the fire consuming her charred brain. The seconds tick by. (How many, again?) No viable alternative comes to her mind. The bed, the sick, the machines hooked up to skin beneath the sheets are all she has available in here.

She'll just have to improvise. She wonders if the railing preventing Root's body from rolling out of bed will come off easily if she uses more strength than she's let them know she has. It's a risk worth taking, spilling this little secret.

Her body remains hunched over Root's, trying to transfer some of her own heat to her. Her eyes search the walls, a quest to locate the peeled paper, the rip that will allow her to dismantle this set they're in with a forceful tug at its corner.

And then she hears it. Finally.

" _Sweetie_ ," Root whispers and it's everything she remembers, her traitorous heart picking up speed in her chest without her permission.

This is not a secret she's willing to share.

 _Look at her, she's dying._

"There's no leaving this place for me," she says, choked voice and a tear trailing a road down her cheek.

Would it taste salty if she licked it?

"Root, I swear to God-"

Lips curving into a smile. "My stubborn sociopath." Smile disappearing without a trace. "Do this one thing _for me_."

And because Sameen wants to bring it back up to the surface, because this is their last moment together, one of many more, she reaches down to pale skin, sicker than her own, to cup her face in her hands, to feel her before she goes.

"I can't," she says, feeling a hand land on her own. "I'm sorry. I'll find a way to get us out."

Then the doors slide open and her spine tenses as it knows it must, a learnt trait after all this time. She's the final barrier between the Devil and her saviour, and she's completely fine with the job.

However, she was not expecting to be such an inefficient one at that. The hand over her small, shaking fingers goes limp, its connection severed. A rush of air is forced into her lungs, her scent hitting her nostrils, calming the pounding in her head.

They can't hurt her anymore. At least there's some comfort in that.

Eyes closed to the horror, Sameen straightens up and turns to face what will be her last sight in this life.

"Such a waste of resources," the blonde bitch says, lowering the gun that carved a path in the air and effectively ended the life in Sameen's hands.

"You should know better than to make promises you can't keep, Miss Shaw."

How she loaths that pesky, presumptuous accent, the smirk that accompanies it every time. The old man's smug smile truly is a thing of nightmares and Sameen wishes that where she's going, dreams don't join her.

"And you should know by now to bring more than just this bitch along."

Soon, the gun in Martine's hand becomes hers. But before she can effectively wipe the smirk from the old man's face, she returns the favour Martine did Root. The sound of her falling lifelessly to the floor is almost enough to bring out a smile of her own.

"Now, dear," ass-face says. "Do you really think you'll be able to leave this place so easily?"

"Who said anything about leaving?"

And there it is. Her way of making his smirk drop.

 **[End of simulation #744]**

||Data compiled from the simulation:

Potential Asset retains logical thought processes under duress.

Potential Asset is rash in her decision making process, but learns from previous mistakes.

Potential Asset responded unexpectedly to Primary Threat's term of endearment. Explore this outcome in depth.

Potential Asset remains unwilling to terminate Primary Threat, dismissing her own request to end her life.

Potential Asset continues to position herself before Primary Threat.

Potential Asset continues to appear willing to terminate Asset Rousseau. Body response: Elevated levels of endorphins.

Potential Asset continues to prefer terminating herself rather than risk being taken back to her cell. Measures to be taken: Have assets dispose of all weapons before going into her room.||

 **6,981**

She guesses she should thank the evil robot overlord for choreographing her escape in such detail. For telling her everything she should avoid.

There's no chip in her head, so she doesn't waste time looking for a scar. But she does go through all the theatrics.

The breaking of the mirror. The grabbing of the shards. But, in this unique instance, she gets ready for the needle, cuts veins with the glass in her hands and steals both the syringe and the olderlies' key cards.

He waits for her at the end of the hallway. And they both relish in the knowledge that one of them won't make it out of this alive.

He pulls out his gun and shoots but she knew he would. So she runs to him.

The satisfaction she feels boiling under her skin as she plunges the needle into his neck is unlike anything she's felt for the longest time. She pulls it out without having pushed the plunger all the way to the bottom, still needing Lambert to be able to move on his own. She holds him up with one arm, while searching in his pockets with the other. A thick wallet rests in his coat's inside pocket. Her lucky day.

This time, when they shoot at her, she pulls him up to his full height and hides under her makeshift human shield.

She doesn't go for the knees anymore. She doesn't even spare a final glance at the stupid, manipulative man lying dead on the ground before pulling open the door.

Her feet start to bleed under the rocks and gravel, and she revels in the feeling. No mind game from Samaritan was able to inflict so clear, so real a pain. Not even her countless deaths, because they'd all been her choice, her acts of rebellion against the machine.

There won't be a boat waiting for her, she knows this. She has to run to the other side of the island and steal another one at gunpoint.

A quick search of the skies and a keen ear reveal to her what she suspected would happen next. So instead of pulling up to the shore, she leaves the engine running and dives headfirst into the water, making sure not to lose her weapon. The helicopter ahead follows the boat for a while longer, before realising it's unmanned.

Sameen's got the shadow map almost down to a science. But she still needs clean and dry clothes. Instead of going to a department store, she steals what she needs from someone's clothes line. Tries to ask nicely for someone's shoes, until forced to brandish her gun in their faces.

She hides the gun under her hoodie, and wrings the water out of her hair as best she can, letting it loose around her shoulders instead of leaving it in its trademark ponytail.

She's not sure how long she walks for, but her hair's already dry. She touches it, and it feels rough under her fingertips. Releasing her lock of hair, she uses the same hand to hail a cab.

Once she hops in the car, the cabbie smiling genuinely at her through the rear view mirror, she heaves a sigh so loud, she's sure Samaritan can hear it.

"Listen, pal, I'm not having the best of days here, okay?" The thirty-something-year-old man nods, sympathising with her. Sameen reads the ID at the back of his seat. And what she finds there makes her heartbeat peak.

But it could be nothing, just that Samaritan's prediction from a while ago hadn't been so completely far off.

Calming herself down, she presses her nails into the palms of her hands. Counts down from twenty. Notices that time hasn't become a blob when she opens her eyes again. The cabbie's still looking at her.

Her mind immediately shifts to form the connections necessary to communicate better with this man. "Kareem -can I call you Kareem? Look, I need to warn my friends. So you're gonna drive until we see a bicycle. You'll follow my instructions to the letter. You do that," she says, "and this is all yours."

Kareem grins, lays his arm against the back of his seat and turns to look at the wallet full of cash being presented to him. "Sure thing."

 **6,986**

After Kareem leaves her on a red spot on the shadow map, Sameen steals some punk's bike. She doesn't even have to pull out her weapon, the kid left it unsupervised against a wall in a skate park. He doesn't see her take it as he pushes some girl against a wall far off from where Sam's standing.

Getting to her friends safely, without attracting Samaritan's attention, might take hours, and Sameen sure hopes that it will.

Time has become a foreign concept to her, something she wishes to learn anew.

 _Count down from twenty. Feel the heartbeats in your chest._

 _And breathe_.

 **6,991**

She walked for an hour, the bike forgotten in some dark alleyway. Walked all the way here, always looking over her shoulder, checking for lumps beneath her skin, for marks concealing betrayal.

She found none, but that doesn't make her any less anxious, any less nervous as she punches the code into the snack machine and goes through those doors.

 **6,992**

It's incredible, how these smart men can be so thick sometimes.

How the squinty man in front of her keeps trying to make her drink water, take her temperature, check her pulse, even after she told him she's fine, there are more pressing matters to discuss.

How, after telling John a hundred times (yes, a hundred, she counted them) _not_ to bring her here, he goes out and does exactly that.

The heels of her boots clack down the stairs, knock on her skull. _Take twenty breaths. Feel the wood of the bench splinter under your hands._

She keeps her eyes fixed on this illusion of the man that's brought them all together. Because, if this whole day turns out to be a lie, then she doesn't want to see it in _her_ eyes.

She just wants to be free a little longer than before.

She can see the outline of her out of the corner of her eye, a double-edged weapon. And as a result of her past experiences, her eyes shut of their own accord, protecting her against her assailant.

Against the one that always dismantles her bones.

Sameen feels three sets of eyes on her, one more potent than the last, each one adding to her confusion. In none of Samaritan's games could she feel this power. Like a gentle caress on her torn skin.

And like an abused animal, she craves the touch.

If this is real, she needs to make them understand. "You need to _listen_ to me, Finch. They'll come. They'll find this place -us- and they'll _kill you all_ …"

Why can't they see that? What does she need to do to-

"I won't let them, Sameen."

Sameen.

 _Sameen_.

Oh, how cruel this is.

It doesn't even matter if this is another one of Samaritan's games anymore. If it is, She's won, nice job, well done. Because, at last, she hears it, the sound that she's learnt to lean on to improve her socially unacceptable behaviour. The voice that reminds her she can be so much more.

She finds herself looking up at two brown pools of despair. Knowing that that emotion has no right to be there. Wishing to take it away.

Her mind zeroes in on the woman falling to pieces in front of her, on the light behind her reddened eyes. Before she knows it, she's standing an arm's length away. Trying to find the clues she's taught herself for search for in that face. The differences between the avatar and-

… and _her_.

Count her breaths. Twenty breaths. Twenty more, all heavy and hanging on her shoulders, pushing her down.

Sameen frowns, then, and her brain decides to do something to try and break her spell, to quiet the pounding on her skull. Her hand flies up to the other woman's throat, finding her pulse very easily.

Warm, pulsing blood rushing through channels inside a body that's alive and here and _smiling_ down at her.

Her hand lets up on the woman's pale throat as Sam analyses the situation around her. Root (because it is her, isn't it?) opens her eyes and waits for Sam's next move. But lately it's usually _her_ who prompts Sameen to move along. Suddenly confronted with the reality of her freedom, Sameen's at a loss for what to do.

"Sameen, it's me. Remember?"

She does remember, she remembers her voice sounding clearer, and she knew this was too good to be true.

And here it comes, when John says " _Shaw_ " in that low voice of his, that sounds just right, but she could have sworn this was wrong, right, real and she's not sure anymore but this touch. Her touch. Hands on her wrists and her eyes on her own and her breath on her skin, warm and delicious.

"Sam," Root croaks. "It's okay."

Okay.

Yes.

She's okay.

The prick on her skin doesn't even bother her as Root breaks her fall.

Big and round and screaming and hers, those eyes. She found them. At last.

 **xxxxx**

End Notes: What I set myself out to accomplish here was to understand Sameen's thought process better. I've seen many people disliking the use of the word "sociopath" on the show, but I gotta say, I understand the reason the writers have for using it. It's simpler, people immediately associate it with a pathology and they get to move along with the story.

I did my research on her so-called Axis II PD, and as it turns out the American Psychiatric Association has dropped the name in favour of something that will help them get more funding for their medical research. But this, of course, doesn't bear weight on the show, and so they haven't changed the way they address her PD.

If you'd like to discuss either Sameen's or Root's PD (what I think is her real PD, dubbed "psychopathy" on the show) message me, and I'll gladly explain why I think 6,741 was totally in character for Sameen, and how much I loved that we got to know her in such a profound way.

Another thing I wanted to play with here, and this was after watching the episode on Sunday (thanks to Canada), was how much of what we saw in the episode was Samaritan and how much Sam's mind. I tried to balance those two consciousnesses here as best as I could.


End file.
